Questions on Beetles

[CCLemon]

Greetings,

I left UO back in 2000 but just came back about a month ago. So much has changed. I was to intimidated to play a tamer back in the days but decided to give it a shot this time around. I tried to read up on good pets since I got no clue what's the meta nowadays especially with the pet training system. It would seem Cu, Lesser Hiryu and Beetles are the go to pets for most people. My question is on the beetles. There's so many beetles such as the frost mite, giant beetle, fire beetle and rune beetle.

1) It seems rune curruption is why people even use a beetle since it's the only pet that has access to RC?

2) RC is good for party play since it lowers the targets resist by 50%

3) if the purpose is party play on bosses then just RC as the single skill is the best option since RC does not last very long? So it's best to force the beetle to only cast RC all the time.

4) any reason why people mainly use the giant beetle? I see only blue beetles and a few fire beetles running around on my server. Is rune beetle bad? I have only seen one rune beetle and zero frost mite so far.

Sorry for the noobie questions, answers to my questions or additional info is appreciated.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

RC+AI is a good combo for a Beetle to learn. I also put Poisoning on my Fire Beetle on Atlantic, but i wish i had just kept him RC+AI, he used to use RC more before learning Poisoning.

Giant Beetles also double as a Pack Animal, you can place loot inside them. Fire Beetles deal 100% Fire Damage (which a lot of creatures are weak to), which also synergizes with Necro/Tamers (Corpse Skin). Frost Mites deal 100% Cold Damage, i use a RC Frost Mite against enemies weakest to cold, mostly Dragons like Rikktor or the Stygian Dragon. The Rune Beetle simply falls behind the other 5 slot Beetles in terms of usefulness, it's packed with too many abilities and so uses RC far less than properly built Beetles. The Iron Beetle and Deathwatch Beetle aren't really worth mentioning.

 

[Tabby Kapak]

The Rune Beetle is the only option for a Discordance + RC pet, so that niche is their value. It means giving up on two magic abilities for one, but makes for an even better group pet? (Unless Disco is already present of course.)

 

[Khaelor]

2) RC is good for party play since it lowers the targets resist by 50%

3) if the purpose is party play on bosses then just RC as the single skill is the best option since RC does not last very long? So it's best to force the beetle to only cast RC all the time.

In party play and with any tamer templates where the tamer themselves are a source of damage (necromage, mage, etc) you want the beetle to cast rc as much as possible. We do not add ai to any of our beetles as ai does not synergize with rc. We also do not add poisoning, because you are correct, the goal is to have the highest uptime of rc.

With our current setup, we have a near 100% uptime in rc. We favor fire beetles over cold or giant for a lot of content because of group synergy and debuffs and a lot of mobs tend to have lower fire resist.

 

[Nero]

Nobody has mentioned the elephant in the room. You can ride giant beetles and fire beetles, which is so convenient and also allows you to simply ride away your pet when it is low on health.

Rune beetles and frost mites are not mountable, hence you see less of them (not to mention their other disadvantages).

 

[MalagAste]

Nobody has mentioned the elephant in the room. You can ride giant beetles and fire beetles, which is so convenient and also allows you to simply ride away your pet when it is low on health.

Rune beetles and frost mites are not mountable, hence you see less of them (not to mention their other disadvantages).

Unless you are a gargoyle then it doesn't matter what pet you have you can't ride one anyway.

 

[Silly Seadog]

Arrrrr, them there fire beetles can also be used as a portable forge for smelting by miners!

 

[Shannow]

becareful you dont get a burnt bum ridding a forge!!!

I know this is totally irrelevant - but by chance, I kind of put talon strike and rune corruption on a beetle.
The 20%DI + 50% reduction in resists plus the negative hit point regen worked really well.
On a boss, such as ratman in stygian, that have loads of hit points, the kill speed was noticeably quicker, even though they dont even have decent resists!
The negative hpr (i only had 70 ninjitsu on my beetle) so was -26, helps a lot. At 120 ninja, I believe it's -50 HPR.
Havent tried it on anything else as its bonding still, but I imagine with higher ninjitsu and something with resists, this might be something to consider.

 

[Silly Seadog]

becareful you dont get a burnt bum ridding a forge!!!

Arrrrrr, don't ye be worryin', I gots me some asbestos-lined Depends fer me minin' excursions!

 

[Shannow]

dont forget to pack some cream. That asbestos dunt half chafe